4.19.2010

Dreams

Today was the first time that Roman was able to tell me about a bad dream that he had.

I'm sure that he has had them before...he has woken up crying and distressed...but he has never been able to explain; he has never been able to verbalize what he saw and why it scared him.

Today he woke up from his nap with loud crying. I went into his room thinking maybe he had fallen off of the bed or that he just wasn't quite ready to wake up (that happens sometimes...to me, too!). Right when he saw me he said "Mommy, hold me!"

I walked over and picked him up, all the while reassuring him that everything was ok.

Then he said "The horsies can't get you!" I almost laughed at first because it seemed so random and took me by surprise. I just wasn't expecting an explanation, and it made me so sad for him!

He continued, over the course of the next few minutes, between some more crying, to tell me that a black horse was chasing him. Then he asked me "Are they downstairs?"

I made it clear that there were no horses anywhere in our house. I also attempted to explain that dreams are just pictures we see in our sleep, and they're not real...that they're gone when we wake up (that's got to be a hard concept to understand when you're not even 3!)

Then he kept reassuring himself all afternoon: "No horsies". "No horsies in our house".

On the one hand, I felt so bad for him, and on the other hand I was so glad he could finally tell me why he was sad.